Strikey Sisters Review

Sometimes taking a classic game and putting a strange twist on it is enough to garner the attention of people and is both interesting and fun to play. Other times, doing so ends up in a weird disjointed malformed amalgam that demands to be put out of its misery. Thankfully, Strikey Sisters (not a great name for a game) falls into the first category of these two rather than the latter.

Set in a high-fantasy world of monsters and magic you play as two sisters who are out to recover their stolen pet. The whole thing – despite how important your pets are – is actually quite chilled out. The story is told through cutely animated cut-scenes where you get to see the two interacting with the various bosses you will fight against in their quest. It is charming, but not exactly reality-altering.

The gameplay is very much the main draw here due to the arcade nature of the game itself. Have you ever played Breakout, or Brick Breaker or Break Bricker or Bread Basket? Well, if any of those (bar the last one) sound familiar, then you will have a rough idea of how combat pans out in Striker Sisters. As the sisters, you bounce the ball around the levels taking out bricks and enemies alike.

Aside from the usual things like the angle of your character affecting the trajectory of the ball, there are a couple of other things to consider. For starters, you can just let the ball hit you and bounce off, but if you want a bit more speed you can actively hit it. If you want to go a stage further, you can charge that attack to give the ball a bit more oomph.

On top of just hitting the ball, you have special items to collect from fallen foes too. These can change how certain things work, one gives you a shield while another turns your ball into a heavy iron wrecking ball. You can also get activated spells; these are one-time use items that have different effects. One of the coolest is the lightning strike magic spell which trashes the arena, though the homing bomb throw is also very powerful.

It all works really well together and makes for a genuinely fun game, one which is even better in co-op. You can tell when playing the game that it was designed with fun in mind and little else. Honestly, that is really quite refreshing in an age so far removed from the arcade roots of gaming. Sometimes just switching (aaaayyyyyyyy) off and playing something that is pure fun is well worth it, Strikey Sisters certainly makes a good case.

Strikey Sisters is a good fun game, just in a very classic way. There are no frills to speak of, nor does there need to be. It harks back to the olden days of gaming in a very satisfying way and the combination of visuals and the soundtrack make for a good time all around. The co-op gives it a bit more in terms of replayability too. It is definitely worth a look, and it isn’t as creepy as the name suggests.